Thinking about paid product scene placement under the high traffic situation

The competition among Internet products has shifted from traffic being king to competition for profitability. If a good business model cannot be found, it will be difficult to survive. In this context, the company's requirements for operations , marketing , and market personnel have also shifted from the promotion of the APP/platform itself to how to better promote paid products.

Based on two years of paid product promotion exploration and detailed data comparison, I found that if you want to quickly promote a paid product and generate the first batch of seed paying users , "scene implantation" is an efficient method.

The so-called scene implantation means implanting product functions and advertisements into the user's usage scenarios. The origin should be product placement in movies and television. Baidu Encyclopedia explains it this way: "Product placement" is a form of advertising that has emerged with the development of movies, television, games , etc. It refers to the deliberate insertion of a merchant's products or services into film and television plots or games in order to achieve a subtle publicity effect.

Scene placement in film and television works

Paid product placement on the Internet means inserting paid products or services into the user's behavior path to achieve the effect of subtle influence or purchase conversion . Compared with sales-style advertising, this method is more acceptable to users and can make users feel that "I have a need and you have a solution."

So, what are the specific methods of scene-based promotion? First, let's take a look at the nature of Internet traffic.

In my opinion, Internet traffic is actually a big road full of traffic. Users will follow the path designed by the product to complete their journey. For example, if you use Alipay to pay, the path is to open Alipay → click the scan icon → scan the code → confirm payment → exit. It’s like we are driving on a road. In order to reach our destination, we will turn, navigate, and even find a toilet if we are in a hurry. But no matter what, users will continue to follow the “road” of the operating product.

Different users’ paths in Alipay

The scene-based promotion of paid products is to find the best way to promote them on this road and encourage users to pay.

Now let's think about where you have paid on the streets. Toll? Gas fee? Buy water or food from a roadside vendor? So in the Internet environment, can this approach be used to get users to pay?

Based on this logic, I divide the scene implantation modes into the following four types.

1. Toll station model: implant paid products into key nodes of user usage scenarios.

This form actually combines marketing and product design. For example, 51job has a “Who has viewed me?” feature, which implants the promotion of paid products at the key point of “knowing who has viewed my resume”. As a marketing and promotion operator, the role of this part is to be good at discovering key points suitable for implanting paid products and promoting the launch of related products.

To give another example, when many video websites first tried to charge fees, they did not tell you at the beginning that the movie was charged. Instead, they told you that you needed to pay after you watched 10 minutes and your interest was piqued. This actually means implanting paid product promotion at the critical point when users watch movies.

This model is often used in the early promotion process of converting a free platform to a paid platform. After most users have been "educated" that this is a paid product or a partially paid product, the promotion of paid products will gradually shift to a roadside service model. We will discuss this in detail below.

2. Roadside service model: Tell users that we provide a value-added product and service that will make your experience even better.

Imagine that you drive for more than ten hours to go somewhere. You bring your own food and can reach your destination just by enduring it. But if you want to have a happy journey, why not try a delicious shop on the roadside and enjoy life?

The same is true for Internet products. Although free users can enjoy basic services, if they want to get more enjoyable experiences, they need to recharge their membership or purchase paid products. A typical example is iQiyi . If you want to watch core movies and avoid being interrupted by long advertisements, then buy a VIP membership.

Here is a thought: decades later, when netizens' awareness of paying is cultivated, will Internet products be directly converted to charging all fees, or will they be charged in this roadside stall model? Or do both coexist?

3. Road sign advertising model: Place advertising space where users can see it but it does not affect the use of functions

This is easy to understand, just like there are billboards on many highways to promote products. Similar forms can also be used to promote paid products on the Internet. However, because the Internet has big data analysis , relevant advertisements will be pushed/displayed based on users’ search habits.

Typical examples include Taobao and Toutiao . You will find that when you search for autumn and winter women's clothing, the banner ad on your Taobao homepage will also display related advertisements for autumn and winter women's clothing.

Another one is Zhenai.com . When users search with any criteria, the first search result is a gray avatar. It will read a small part of your personal information and then tell you that if you pay, you can be ranked at the top when others search. Small and medium-sized companies that do not yet have big data analysis capabilities can adopt a similar approach.

4. Flyer model: regularly push discounts, trials, new products and other information to users to encourage users to learn about paid products.

Strictly speaking, some things (such as text messages) do not actually fall into the category of scene implantation. However, many apps use in-site messages, PUSH messages, pop-up ads, etc. as channels to push this type of information, and these channels are also part of the user behavior path, so they are considered part of the scene implantation here.

The difficulty in pushing this type of information lies in analyzing which users are target users who are likely to pay and controlling the frequency of push notifications. If possible, you can also segment users according to their habits and optimize the copywriting and trigger mechanisms.

These four modes have their own advantages and disadvantages. In terms of "effect" and "degree of disturbance to users", each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The details are as follows:

When choosing a paid product placement model, my advice is:

Toll station model: Just as there cannot be too many toll points, key nodes that “intercept” users must be selected selectively, to reach a point that does not cause users to be extremely disgusted and leave, but can also allow some users to pay. You can try a small number of attempts first, do data analysis, and select the best node after A/B testing.

Roadside service model: This model requires operators to pay more attention to user needs. After analysis, they can assist product managers in developing more value-added service points, thereby using products to drive user payment.

Road sign advertising model: Users now have developed the habit of automatically ignoring advertising spaces (think about how long it has been since you last looked at some APP banner ads). This tests two aspects of the capabilities of operations and promotion personnel: one is the ability to understand user psychology and form attractive copywriting; the other is to segment users based on big data and show users content that they may be interested in based on algorithms.

Flyer mode: In addition to using attractive copy to touch users' hearts, it is important to control the frequency. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the user to open the APP notification again after closing it.